Baltimore

Since the hurricane kept us away from New Orleans this Labor Day, Francisco and I took a little trip up to Baltimore. We started the day at the Baltimore Art Museum, where we looked around the Cone Exhibit (collected by Baltimore's two eccentric Cone Sisters and stuffed to the gills with some great Matisses), before meeting a friend for brunch at The Gertrude. The Gertrude is named after Gertrude Stein, a student of one of the Cone Sisters, who introduced them to the art scene in Europe.

Photo credit: Francisco

After brunch, we headed to the Walters Art Museum a couple of miles away. The Walters is great--here is their Baroque Chamber of Arts and Wonders, which imitates many collections of natural beauty and art from the 1600s. 

The artwork below shows something I'd never seen before: the serpent is a woman. Perhaps the serpent is just Eve! Clearly poor Adam had no chance against the both of them.

The sculpture below if from the side of a sarcophagus. I love the sculptures that don't show the face--very creepy.

There's an old house connected to the Walters that holds it's Asia collection. The house itself is lovely, especially this staircase:

(By the way, both the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters are free, so you should go visit!)

We went to mass at the Baltimore Basilica, which was the first cathedral in America (built from 1806 to 1821). It's not really my style, and the crypt, which as far as I remember is great, was closed. But the fact of the matter is, it looks quite similar to early Protestant churches in America--the chandeliers, the giant, stained-glass-less windows, the predominantly white interior, the minimal decoration, etc.

This is the rotunda--the basilica was designed by Benjamin Latrobe, the architect of the Capitol, and the similarities are especially evident in the rotunda and the rotunda flowers.

(The basilica sustained damage in last year's earthquake and is still being renovated as a result.)

We finished our day in Baltimore with a trip to Little Italy. Little Italy was all dolled up for the race car fans--did I mention that there was a big race going on that day in actual downtown Baltimore?--like, along the city streets?! There was, and Parker's husband was driving in it, and it seems that the racers and fans tend to frequent Little Italy. So, with Nascar on in the background, we enjoyed a lovely dinner and canoli.